I have to travel constantly for my job, and often like to read comic or books while on the road. On planes especially. It has occurred to me that there are a lot of earlier Batman and DC comics that I haven't read, and so I now plan on reading every single Batman comic and every issue of Detective Comics. I'm hoping that it will give me a better understanding and knowledge of the character, and since I can update it as I go, it's something short to write about until I finish my revision of my Cap vs Batman blog.

Expect this page to be constantly updated.

Batman #1: I'm aware this is not the first appearance of Batman in comics, it's just what I happened to re-read first. I had read this before, so no big surprises here. It gives a brief telling of Batman's origin and then has a story with the Joker. What's most interesting about this is to witness the start of what became these two incredibly prominent, well developed characters. All the elements are there..Batman saving Joker, joker venom, a bit of detective work...and there are some plot details which have been updated in several other stories, such as Joker disguising himself as a cop which influenced The Dark Knight.

In the subsequent story we have Batman vs Dr Strange and his monsters. Two things stand out to me in this story, as we see Batman's knowledge and intellect on full display, however at the same time we see a Batman who doesn't mind killing as a way to solve a problem. He doesn't kill directly, but has no issue in allowing the "monsters" to kill each other and indirectly killing the two remaining despite having an antidote.. It's going to be interesting to see his evolution into a character for whom any death is needless and unacceptable.

The story with The Cat (who would later become Catwoman) isn't especially interesting. The main thing I observed is Batman allowing Robin to fight 4 men by himself. It was either a training exercise or Bruce was so confident in the training that he had given Dick that he genuinely had no need to fear for his safety. I refuse to believe the hokey in story reason that criminals are very scared without their guns.

The final story, The Return of the Joker doesn't really add much over the first story, although it shows the Joker's foresight and preparedness as well as his extensive knowledge of chemistry, something that later becomes a staple of the character.

I thought you meant in new 52, this is going to take forever lol. That's 1567 total issues to get through. The first few issues weren't even good or worth reading besides for historical value

Well, I tend to go through comics pretty fast. Still, yeah, this is going to take a while. At 30 comics a week, it's going to take a full year, and I'm not likely to read 30 comics a week.

I really only started reading in 2004 or so, so I can cut the last 10 years worth of comics off, which is about 240. Still, yeah, definitely going to take a while. But I'm going to do it anyway, so why not chronicle it.

@muyjingo: well I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this thread continue. And how are you getting all these issues? The Batman Chronicles?

Thanks. I hope people will find it interesting. Yup, chronicles and a mix of other sources.

Interesting goal. So, are you still going through with this, since it's been a while since you updated...?

Nice goal

But to earn my respect, add Action Comics

just kidding :D

I've pretty much given up on this lol, at least blogging about it. I simply don't have the time, at least not to blog about it as well.

It's still my goal to read all of his comics because I think it will result in a much deeper understanding of the character and his history. It isn't that large a goal, as there are not that many comics and I've still been reading through them.

Maybe when I finish I'll write something about the experience, but I won't be able to do a review of each issue like I wanted to.